Eclectic Readers discussion

In this first episode of 2016, Meredith, Tara and I dissect The Sculptor a little bit and throw that Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope out the window. We also make some reading resolutions for you guys to hold us to, and cross our fingers for TV shows based on our previous Eclectic Readers books. What are your reading resolutions? Did we leave anything out of our discussion? Here's where you let us know!

Also, Susan may have been absent, but we would like to say happy birthday to our littlest bookworm!

The episode is up now! http://sunriserobot.net/eclecticreaders/ Give it a listen and let us know what you think.

I love the idea of bookultuions! :) I think I'll copy off of Tara and say more non-fiction as I added quite a few nonfiction books to my to-read list in the past few months. I also want to blackout my BookBingo card this year, something I didn't do last year. I made my Goodreads reading goal lower this year, only 24 books, to try and make sure I read all of our books plus one a month - I'm pretty sure I can do it!

And I'm still sad that people don't like The Magicians, I really liked the series and even George did too (well, he only read the first one).

PS. Next year you should do a "best of" episode with the end of the year. :)

Megan wrote: "PS. Next year you should do a "best of" episode with the end of the year. :)"

Great idea!!

Ok, I'm doing it! I'm going to "live review" this episode as I listen to the podcast! My hopeful goal is to try to review the most current podcast and one past episode every month so that eventually I get through all of them.

Looking forward to your thoughts, Kim!

And go!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the theme music?! So cute.
I love me a good fort!
100 books?! Nette... you're a machine!
I love to pack when I move... I hate unpacking though.
Nope, never read "Cinder". Hmm, cyborg Cinderella... well, I do love a twist on fairy tales. Will have to check out the synopsis and decide if I should look into it.
Ha, I love Tara's top 3 criteria for books. #needmagic
Yay! Nette's reading Kavalier and Clay! I feel like I'm ahead of the game since none of you have read it. That pretty much never happens. haha
What? You can fold books into sculptures?!?! Must Google this.
Gasp! I love Mindy Kaling and enjoyed her book "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me". I'm looking forward to her new book.
I am a fan of autobiographies and memoirs. And biographies (of dead people) are great too! I haven't quite figured out what my favorite types of fiction are yet... I do like historical fiction though.
My book resolution is "Read less, but enjoy it more!". I had to skip book bingo this year to make it attainable. But next year, I'm blacking out that bingo card too! So this year's goal is a doable 15 books.
I want to read "Bonk".
"Gulp" sounds interesting too!
Ugh, I really need to be better about reading the books I actually own. So many staring at me from my nightstand.
Ha, Tara's accidental dirty joke.
Book-o-lution! Year end check in!
Eclectic Readers = movie trendsetters
I saw the trailer for Shadowhunters... I'm intrigued but my DVR is getting too full.
"The Magicians" is going to be a TV show?! I might actually watch that. Maybe it'll be a sitcom. Slap stick comedy at Brakebills!
Goose, geese, moose, meese. It's all good.
Agree on Quentin being more tolerable in smaller TV episode increments. I like that there's the potential of building characters besides Quentin.
I hope I get the Syfy channel... No idea what is in our cable package.
The Readathon! Was so fun! My favorite part was checking in and seeing everyone's updates and point collecting. The reading was good too.
"Mere reads in weird places" would be an awesome series of memes (or whatever the right word is for that).
Still haven't seen the new Star Wars movie.... *eep*
Looking forward to the next Readathon!
Random thought = why 200 days? Does 200 represent something numerically or in theology or something?
Kudos to Mere for reading her first graphic novel!
I used to read comics (don't get excited, I read Archie lol) but never got into graphic novels.
Yeah, I skipped to word bubbles a lot and had to slow down and really take it in. Also guilty of skipping long descriptions in books.
Who is David Smith as a person? "Tortured" artist. Egotistical. Lived in his own world, by his own rules.
As for his family, I think he set an unrealistic standard to live by or make them proud. He twisted their good intentions and turned it into a very self-wallowing kind of passion.
Definitely agree that David Smith could've made a name for himself in other ways than being a world famous artist.
Lol nerd alert with the Greek lore...ohmygod, it's Greek right? Lord, I need to brush up on my mythology.
Yeah, human nature to want to be the best, to be known... I wouldn't mind it myself, but not sure I could handle that kind of pressure.
I agree that David is honest and not a liar, but he most definitely has fooled himself! He is rather self involved in his own ideas of how the world *should* work that he wasn't paying attention to how it really did work.
Manic Pixie Dream Girl = I know this phrase is bothersome to many and I'm not a fan either since its so overused, but it's not the phrase or even the stereotypes tied to it that ... I think I'm bothered that this type of female character sometimes gets labeled this way even though there are girls and women who may actually exist like this. (Agreeing with Nette here!) It's just that the MPDG isn't the focus of the story so why do they need to be developed?
Can someone write a book (or a graphic novel?!) and call it "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" and give her a real story already?
Death... am I the only one who thought he looked a little like Stan Lee? No? Just me? Ok then...
After further thought, I actually liked Death as a character. I do agree that he was a bit of a jerk, but I liked that about him. Death came across the way I would think.
Even though Death explains that he comes in human form once in awhile (I forget how often) but I wonder if he tells that to every person he makes a deal with.
Does Death have to make "death" seem more personal to people? It's no secret that a large portion of humanity is terrified of death and the unknown. If Death comes as Uncle Harry, now its a little more familiar, and a little less scary.
The duality of the deal that Uncle Harry made to David is interesting... live a short and passionate life OR live a long and pleasant life. Which life are any of us living right now?
Very interesting take at the first and last panels, Tara! No thoughts to add, just enjoying this part.
(Seriously, this whole "boy wants fame, girl points out legacy is more than that" reminds me of "The Fault in Our Stars".... is it possible to have a Manic Pixie Dream Boy? Because that might've happened in "The Fault...")
Oh, snap! Totally on board with the idea of the challenge of our 30s... Definitely stuck in the monotony and need to elevate myself... be more present.
Oh, yeah, The Timekeeper.... seriously, whoever "invented" time was a jerk.
I am on board with a Chinese checkers metaphor.
Sorry... just listening to the metaphor part. Getting deep. Nothing to add.
What about art is special... I don't think of myself as artistic so art is special to me by virtue of being something unattainable to me. I don't paint, sing, dance, draw, etc. but those are just examples of the universal examples of art. I do think at the very core of it, art is about creating, and sometimes we all forget we are artists everyday, even in the most mundane ways. (Business analyst here! My Excel spreadsheets are my art!)
I think graphic novels lend themselves to being a great kind of book that is worth re-reading and picking up on those things we missed in the illustrations or better understand the themes running throughout. I'm just not sure if I'm going to bother re-reading "The Sculptor".

Ok, done!

Wow, that's long... ha, enjoy folks! I'll try to be back later this weekend to review episode 1. :)

That was awesome, Kim! :-D

Death reminded me of Stan Lee, too!

oh my goodness, Kim that was fantastic! Death reminds me of Stan Lee too! And YES! I feel too - this is a story about David, from his point of view, why would we defocus to talk about her? Does that damage the book at all to have background characters or are we just so hyper focused on it because she so resembles to MPDG trope?

Also, yes, it's Greek! :D

So hey... I may have tweeted Scott McCloud and he might have tweeted me back! Here is the conversation for anyone interested in the same questions I was interested in...

Tara: @scottmccloud would Meg be alive if David hadn't stopped thinking of art as his path to immortality?

Scott: Answer to your question:

Maybe, maybe not. Carelessness + random, uncaring universe. Plus wanting ice cream that day.

She didn't die as a *direct* consequence of David's decisions. It was just bad luck. Harry doesn't even decide such things. He just shows us through the door when the time comes—and, in the last scene, prevents David from interfering, i.e., "breaking the rules," after his momentary slip of the tongue ("I know you")

Tara: Interesting! And thank you for responding. It's so great to get the your perspective! That was one of the theories in our discussion - if David essentially "broke his contract" with death and that's why Meg died. It being bad luck, somehow makes it sadder and very real! That was definitely one of the things my book club kept saying was how very real your characters were.

Can I ask then, why the slip of the tongue? Was that just a bit of the human left in death?

Or was it purposeful on death's part?

And thank you again for taking the time to answer at all! It's really a privilege.

Scott: No, a genuine slip, from the still fallible Uncle Harry part of Death.

And happy to do it.
Thanks for reading!

Tara: Thank you for writing!

And if you are ever bored one day, check out our book club's podcast! We discussed The Sculptor on the lat one! However, we definitely interpreted some things differently from your intentions - but that's one of the amazing thing about art. :) Thanks again!

Scott: Actually, already listened! Thanks for taking on the book. Feedback, good or bad, is always helpful. :-)

Tara: Oh wow, I'm kind of freaking out right now. :) Thank you for listening and thank you for answering my follow-up questions. We really enjoyed discussing this book! I hope you do another novel-length work, I really enjoyed it!

*SQUEE*

he already listened?! neat!! the podcast is just making its rounds with authors we read. nbd.

Wow, that's really cool!